World Happiness Report

Natalia Maldonado

2025-01-23

Data Sources and Collection Process

Sources

The data used in the World Happiness Report is derived from:

• Gallup World Poll: Provides survey responses from over 150 countries.
• World Bank: Supplies economic indicators like GDP per capita.
• World Health Organization (WHO): Offers health-related data, such as life expectancy.

Data Collection Process

• Surveys: Respondents answer a series of questions about their lives and perceptions.
• Economic and Health Data: Collected from global institutions to complement survey responses.
• Standardization: Data is adjusted for comparability, such as converting GDP to purchasing power parity (PPP).
• Key Calculation: Combines survey results and external indicators to compute the Happiness Score.

Data

Happiness Data
Country	year	LogGDP	SocialSup	HealthExp	Freedom	Generosity	Corruption	PosAffect	NegAffect	Region	OriginalGDP
Bulgaria	2023	10.272790	0.9349162	66.7	0.7543243	-0.13129753	0.9478562	0.5394388	0.1918842	Central and Eastern Europe + CIS	33403.376
China	2023	9.860808	0.7969825	69.0	0.7933784	-0.03157096	NA	0.7079852	0.2103501	Asia	22137.600
Colombia	2023	9.666558	0.8332084	69.7	0.8234711	-0.14246459	0.8702267	0.7541034	0.2854169	Latin America and Caribbean	18692.385
India	2023	8.919471	0.6328966	61.5	0.8996010	0.12088692	0.7698518	0.6987651	0.3885257	Asia	9160.064
Iran	2023	9.650888	0.8094789	66.9	0.6154001	0.25360298	0.7642531	0.5333526	0.4246328	Middle East and Africa	16154.000
Luxembourg	2023	11.648711	0.8791953	71.7	0.9108133	0.03343977	0.3432108	0.7507005	0.1944953	NorthAmerica + ANZ +Western EU	132846.574

Happiness Score Data
Country	Happiness	year
Afghanistan	1.7210	2024
Afghanistan	1.8590	2023
Afghanistan	2.4038	2022
Afghanistan	2.5229	2021
Afghanistan	2.5669	2020
Afghanistan	3.2033	2019

Variables

• Ladder Score: Self-reported happiness on a 0–10 scale.
• Log GDP per Capita: Adjusted economic output per person adjust for PPA (log-transformed).
• Social Support: % of respondents with reliable friends or family.
• Healthy Life Expectancy: Expected years of healthy living.
• Freedom to Make Life Choices: % feeling free to make personal decisions.
• Generosity: % donating money to charity recently.
• Perceptions of Corruption: Trust in public institutions (inverse).
• Dystopia Residual: Captures unmeasured influences on happiness.

Map

Correlation Heatmap between Variables

Top & Bottom 5 Countries by Happiness Score

Comparison of the Happiness Report between Regions

Happiness Score vs GDP per Capita by Region

Positive Affect by Region

Comparison Happiness Score and Positive Affect

Conclusion

• Measuring happiness is more complex than it seems, as a direct question may oversimplify what “being happy” truly means.
  
• This analysis reveals that daily emotions (Positive Affect) and reported happiness are not perfectly aligned.
• Happiness depends not only on what we feel daily but also on social, cultural, and economic factors that shape how people perceive their lives overall.